The bloc is making its people “suffer” while Russia still has “plenty of buyers” for its energy, the foreign minister has said
The EU is effectively committing “harakiri” by abandoning Russian energy in an attempt to hurt Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
Speaking on Monday to students at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Russia’s primary college for diplomats, Lavrov argued that European leaders are making their own voters bear the cost of their policies toward Russia.
The EU has committed to phasing out Russian fossil fuels completely by 2027, having drastically reduced Russian oil and gas imports since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Energy costs have risen across much of the bloc, with the US-Israeli war on Iran adding further pressure.
Germany, once considered the EU’s industrial powerhouse, has been particularly affected. Its economy contracted in both 2023 and 2024 – the first back-to-back annual decline in more than two decades – and is forecast to grow by just 0.5% this year.
“Europe is simply committing harakiri and proudly declaring that its people must suffer… for European values,” Lavrov said, referring to the Japanese ritual suicide also known as seppuku.
“Apparently, by ‘European values’ they mean Nazism, burying Nazi criminals with honors, and banning the Russian language, Russian-language education, Russian culture and media, as well as the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church,” he added.
Lavrov argued that the EU’s attempt to pressure Moscow has failed to deprive Russia of customers. “There’s no panic here whatsoever. We’ve always had plenty of buyers,” he said, adding that Russian exporters have shifted toward “those who are more reliable.”
“If Europe wants to pay $800-900 per thousand cubic meters for American liquefied natural gas, what can we do about it?” he asked.
Russia has increasingly redirected its energy exports toward Asia amid Western sanctions. Its seaborne crude shipments to China hit a record 1.86 million barrels per day in January, up 46% year-on-year. Russia has also remained India’s largest oil supplier, selling around 2.1 million bpd in August, or 45% of the country’s imports, according to maritime intelligence firm Kpler.
Lavrov said the shift should not be viewed as a sudden “pivot to the East,” arguing that Russia has long cultivated economic ties in both directions.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who survived an assassination attempt by a pro-Ukraine activist, similarly described the EU as a “suicide ship” in April, accusing Brussels of “ideological blindness and incompetence.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged last month that the loss of cheap energy imports had dealt a major blow to the bloc’s economy. Lavrov argued that the policies demonstrate that European leaders “don’t think about the voters that brought them to power.”
